While pollution levels are reaching record highs in China, a Canadian start-up is finding a way to make a profit. Vitality Air, a company that sells canned air and oxygen, is seeing a huge demand from users in China.

In China fresh air is a luxury, something so precious. When a Canadian company started a bottling Rocky Mountains air, it became butt of jokes. But, everyone was shell-shocked, with first shipment of 500 bottles of fresh air manufactured by the Canadian Company were sold in just four days

A 7.7 Litre can of crisp air taken from Banff National Park in the majestic Rocky Mountains range sells for roughly 100 yuan (Â£10), which is 50 times more expensive than a bottle of mineral water in China. According to a report, wealthy Chinese women buy the bottled fresh air for their families or give away as gifts.

The Canadian company is not the first to sell fresh air to the Chinese. Last year, Beijing artist Liang Kegang fetched the equivalent of Â£512 for a glass jar filled with air taken from a business trip in southern France. In 2013, multimillionaire Chen Guangbiao sold pop-sized cans of air purportedly taken from less industrialised regions of China for 5 yuan (Â£0.50) each.

Vitality Air's Mr Lam admits that he started out the company as a joke as well when he and co-founder Troy Paquette filled a plastic bag of air and sold it for less than 50 pence on the auction site Ebay. A second bag sold for $160 (Â£105).

Very few people know that, these bottles are shipped to India and North America as well but China remains its biggest market. In India, each bottle costs around CA$40 (Rs 1900 approx). Pollution levels have been ever-increasing in Delhi and experts say people in the capital city will also have need of the bottles containing fresh air.